Sports and Games

Sports and games are all forms of usually competitive physical activity which, through casual or organized participation, aim to use, maintain or improve physical ability and skills while providing entertainment to participants, and in some cases, spectators. Hundreds of sports exist, from those requiring only two participants, through to those with hundreds of simultaneous participants, either in teams or competing as individuals.

Etymologies

The word “Sport” comes from the Old French word“desport” which means “leisure”, with the oldest def–inition in English from around 1300 being “anything humans find amusing or entertaining”.

The word “Game” comes from the Old English “gamen” which means joy, fun, and amusement.

Sports and games ergo, are activities engaged in for relaxation, amusement, diversion and recreation.

General view of sports and games

Sports and games are being increasingly recognized from both the educational and social points of view. More and more funds are being allocated for encouraging sports in schools, colleges and universities; in fact, sports have become an essential part of the curricula. Now regular programs are drawn up in all educational institutions to persuade as many students as possible, regardless of special aptitudes, to participate in games, and not merely watch matches occasionally to cheer up their favorite teams or attend the prize distribution functions at the end of a sports season.

1. Queen of Apostles Seminary is not an exception to this since it generally recognizes games as activities which are based in physical athleticism which include ball games, athletics, Karate, weight lifting and swimming.
2. In a week we’ve six days when the students go for ball games, weight lifting and athletics. Swimming takes place on Sunday afternoon.
3. Every year we’ve students from different dorms competing in ball games and athletics and the winning teams usually celebrate in style.
4. Each game/ athletic is governed by a set of rules or customs, which serve to ensure fair competition, and allow consistent adjudication of the winner.
5. Apart from some exceptional cases of some students, all the students at Queen’s should play one game or more.

Importance of games and sports

• Sports foster friendship and amity. The students learn to cultivate the vital quality of learning how to work together, to become not only good winners, but also good losers.
• Participation in games and sports invariably ensures good health, fitness and, generally, freedom from ailments of various types.
• Physical fitness is essential for proficiency in studies and for winning distinctions in examinations for it increases self-esteem and mental alertness. Unless the human body is kept in smooth trim and in an overall fit condition, even the brain will refuse to co-operate after some time.
• Regular participation in sports provides a healthy channel for diversion of energies. Wherever students and other youth participate in sports regularly, misdirection of youthful vigor is much less and the tendency to indulge in indiscipline and mischief is curbed.
• “The battle of Waterloo was won on the playfields of Eton“, implying that playing games and the spirit of sportsmanship help to inculcate lasting values, which make for good soldiers, good fighters and good discipline, apart from promoting physical fitness.
• They help in creating a healthy, well-developed, disciplined and efficient society in which people know the right proportions in life, they put everything in the right perspective, and seldom conduct themselves in an unsporting, ungentlemanly and unbecoming manner.
• Playing the game on the playground naturally instructs people to play the game of life in the right spirit, which is what matters most, not victory or defeat.
• According to sociologists, society gains in many ways when the government encourages sports and games everywhere, provides playgrounds, the necessary equipment and other facilities, and rewards outstanding sportsmen, so as to encourage others also to play games. The crime graph dips, which means that the incidence of general crimes decreases because the right spirit and the right approach to things is developed on the playground.
• They help to inculcate the habit of respecting the judge and of observing the rules. For those who violate the rules, play foul or exceed the permissible limits, or indulge in tactics that are unfair, are promptly pulled up by the umpire. Anyone who refuses to mend his ways or to repeatedly violate the rules is ordered to quit the field and is replaced by another player.
• Some observers have contended that there is a close link between sports and a country’s industrial development and the general progress of society. That is why it is contended, most of the gold medals at the Olympics are bagged by advanced countries such as the U.S.A., Russia, Japan, China and Germany, and Britain too manages to bag a few of them.

In conclusion, I make a passionate appeal to all the students and those who have read this article to embrace sports and games for they will bring about academic excellence as put by Theodore Hesburgh, author of “The Importance of School Sports and Education,” it is imperative for school age children to have access to sports and games for not only does it empower youth and promote higher self-esteem, but also motivates students, enables them to earn better grades, especially in schools where obtaining certain grades is a pre-requisite to staying on the team.